The Religion Site of P.A. Martin
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Welcome. The purpose of this website is to house my essays, study notes, and non-scholarly musings. It is mainly intended for my personal use. But thank you for visiting.

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  • Perennial/Comparative
  • Christianity
  • Islam
  • Hinduism
  • Buddhism
  • Taoism



Areas of Research

Perennialism, Asceticism and Mysticism, Buddhist Doctrine, Nikayas of the Pali Canon, Early Mahayana Buddhism

More Areas of Interest

South Asian Religions, Hellenistic Philosophy, Gnosticism, Christian Mysticism, Patristics, Syriac Christianity, Christian Monasticism, Sufism, Taoism, Comparative Spiritualties, Inter-Religious Dialogue.

Past Areas of Research

Christological Controversies, Christology, Trinitarianism, Development of the Papacy, Catholic Doctrine

Comparative Spiritualties

I am most interested in comparative spirituality. After all, spirituality is the essence of religion. The religions are in many ways very different from each other, but there is nevertheless a unity of spirituality in them. For example, all of the major world religions share these essential principles in common: realizing the unsatisfactoriness of unspiritual existence, observing basic morality, doing compassionate actions, keeping the passions of the animal nature under control, purifying the mind, eradicating the vices, acquiring the virtues, experiencing a profound transformation of the inner being, the practices of discipline, meditation, prayer, and adoration, and ultimately returning to the divine reality which leads to supreme beatitude. This is the universal spiritual path that is the essence of every major religion. They all go on to interpret it in various ways, with their particular emphases, external forms, and additional elements that often completely contradict each other. I think it is fascinating to see how this plays out in the various traditions. It is also interesting how they interacted with each other throughout history and especially in the modern era of inter-religious dialogue. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done in this area.


Short Biography

I began studying religion over a decade ago after a life-changing spiritual experience. I went through several phases with a fragmented understanding of religion until I eventually arrived at a synthetic vision of reality, which I like to call the religio perennis, or the perennial religion, that is more or less present in all religions to various degrees. It is very exciting to study religion from this perspective. I hope to contribute to the study of Perennialism.
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